Bee garden update

Our bee-friendly garden is looking stunning this summer, mainly due to Ian's hard work and pottering, ably assisted by Teesh, Ben, and many other volunteers.

The wildflower meadow beneath the community mural - wildflowers include corncockles, cornflowers, charlock, poppies and borage.

The living roof on the bee-ed-shed is starting to take hold.

The herb hexagon.

If you want to get involved in caring for the bee-friendly garden, and helping our local pollinators, please come along on Friday afternoon's and join in with Ian's gardening club at 2pm.

Tomatoes 2017

The following are photos of some of the varieties of tomatoes we are growing this year:-

Big pink juicy "berner rose".

Tasty brown "chocolate cherry".

Delightfully furrowed "costoluto di Fiorentina".

That old favourite "gardener's delight".

A new one for us this year, and already the blackbird's favourite, "Italian beef heart".

Another from the excellent Real Seed Catalogue, "Jen's tangerine".

The aptly named "orange banana".

Early Hungarian "stupice".

Probably the tastiest tomato there is (pity it's an F1), "sungold".

Very dependable "yellow submarine".

Veg boxes on 21st July

£10 "standard" veg box = cara pink-eyed potatoes, courgettes, broad beans, elephant garlic, rainbow chard, tomatoes, fresh basil, three peppers, and curly kale.

£6 "small" veg box = cara pink-eyed potatoes, a sprig of lemon verbena, tomatoes, broad beans, elephant garlic, and rainbow chard.

Phone us on 788454 to try a veg box this Friday.

Summer veg

Our summer produce has well and truly started to come in now, and can be bought in our farm shop (open every day 11am till 6pm), and at both Pendeen (every first and second Saturday, 10am till 1pm) and St Just (every Saturday in the WI Hall, 9:30am till 12:30pm) farmers' markets, as well as in our veg boxes. Here's a small selection of what we've been picking lately.

Aubergines.

Broad beans.

"Passandra" cucumbers.

Bulb fennel.

Elephant garlic picked and drying in the polytunnel.

A variety of tomatoes.

Colin and Anne

Colin and Anne, both from France, will be heading back to their respective homes tomorrow, having wwoofed with us on the community farm for the past few weeks. We'd like to thank them both for their hard work whilst staying with us, and wish them both well for the future.

Colin, on the right, picking red Russian kale in the market garden.

Anne, who also volunteered with us in spring 2015, scouring the chicken field for eggs.

Preparing a new crop field

This is the first year since 2013 when we have prepared a whole new field for planting crops, which is an essential part of our crop rotation. For the past three weeks, in any "spare" moments, we have been preparing one of the furthest fields of the community farm ready for our winter brassica plants, most of which we plan to plant out in the coming few days - so if anybody wants to help on Sunday or Monday please come along!

Our brassica plants (kales, cabbages, and broccolis), all sown and raised on the farm, hardening off outside the polytunnels ready for planting this weekend.

Our new crop field, after a shallow rotovation, ready for ploughing.

The first section ploughed.

And the whole field ploughed.

Camping 2017

One field (Home Field) on the community farm is now open for basic camping, offering a limited number of pitches for a limited time over the summer holidays. The cost is £7 per night for adults, £3 for under-18s, and free for under-5s.

www.pitchup.com/campsites/England/South_West/Cornwall/Penzance/bosavern-community-farm/

Please find more information and make your bookings at the above website.

Starting to build this year's temporary camping hot shower.

The shower cubicle complete, made entirely of reclaimed materials.

A neighbouring farmer cutting pitches for us.

The camper's waste and recycling centre, plus water supply.